Personal StatementDavid Sauvage

The personal statement is an important part of your application for admission and scholarships. The University uses the statement to learn more about you as an individual your talents, experiences, achievements and points of view. Think of the personal statement as your opportunity to introduce yourself to the admissions officers and faculty who will be evaluating your application. What would you like us to know about you that may not be evident from a review of the rest of your application?

Very recently I finished writing a one-act play entitled Michelle. I love to write, but writing this play was often painful. That is what made it different.

I created three characters, each with their own set of oddities, aberrations, and manias. Eliot, the main character, is a sort of pseudo-intellectual, so caught up in the idea of art for art's sake that he is able to convince himself that he doesn't care for women. His college roommate, Mark, enjoys the opposite sex with the passion of a hedonist. The conflict arises when Elliot can no longer hold up his facade. He has fallen for a woman named Michelle, who also, rather surprisingly, is Mark's girlfriend. The two roommates battle each other in order to prove why each deserves Michelle's affection.

I admit it's rather simple. There is not any fascinating plot twist. No one dies. No one even curses. That's because it's a play of an idea, of the definite conflict between intellectualism and sexuality. As a resolution, I do hint at "balance." But I think that balance tends to be a common escape from writing a true climax. The play ends without smiles just as the symbolic conflict goes on long after the audience has left the drama lab.